This is a legacy website featuring a collection of work by the Carnegie Endowment’s global network of scholars on topics including Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and the post-Soviet states. This site is a product of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based in Washington, D.C. For more recent work by Carnegie scholars in this field, please visit Carnegie Politika.
It seems that Russia is not ready to face new and diverse threats and challenges in international security. Instead, it gives priority to preparations for war with the United States and NATO.
Since the Arab Spring first broke out in December 2011, Russian policymakers have viewed regional developments with unease. They now wonder what rising Islamist parties in the Middle East will mean for Russia's relationship with its own Muslim minority.
The Russian government’s ability to resolve a host of problems in its preparations for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games will be a decisive factor in shaping its reputation at home and abroad.
In order for the EU to have a successful policy toward its biggest neighbor, Europeans must understand the recent changes that have taken place in Russia and their implications for the country’s future.
For the foreseeable future, the Commonwealth of Independent States should remain Russia’s significant foreign policy priority. Its policies toward individual CIS countries will be shaped by Russian leaders’ practical interests and needs, and also by the changing environment.
Russia has embarked on its own “pivot” toward China, but it is far from certain that Moscow will find Beijing a comfortable partner.
The emerging Sino-Russian relationship in the Xi-Putin era is likely to take the form of a tandem in which China will be the driving force, though not at the cost of Russia surrendering its independence.
The protests in Russia cannot be called a political phenomenon, as the participants are experienced in civic activism but not in political life.
Deadlock at the UN Security Council has so far dashed international hopes for finding an end to the Syrian crisis. The United States and Russia must now find a practical mechanism for implementing political transition in Syria.
Western society wants to bring back a normative dimension to foreign policy and stop the export of corruption from authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries to the West.